NASA's Exo-Planet rover 'Rosalind' has been fitted with a cutting-edge 'alien-hunting camera' ahead of next year's mission to the Martian surface

British technicians at Airbus in Hertfordshire are fitting the devices, this weekCamera system Pan-Cam was designed by University College London engineers It's scheduled to land on the mysterious planet in March 2021 - then hunt for life

NASA's Exo-Planet rover 'Rosalind' has been fitted with a cutting-edge, high-definition camera in order to search for alien life on Mars.

British technicians at Airbus in Hertfordshire are busy fitting the devices, this week, ahead of being shipped to France for testing.

The U.S. space space agency plan to launch the rover in 2020 - and get a definitive answer on whether there's non-human life on the red planet.

If successful, it will be a historic moment that will forever change our understanding of the solar system.

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Life on Mars? The U.S. space space agency plan to launch the rover in 2020 - and get a definitive answer on whether there's non-human life on the red planet

Built and designed in the UK, more than 100 scientists across the country have worked on the project, investigating a number of essential aspects such as selecting the best landing location on Mars

HOW WILL IT WORK?

The camera system, called Pan-Cam, was designed by engineers at University College London.

It perches atop the rover’s high mast and is fitted with sensors that scan the planet's surface in search of minerals or water.

Once it identifies an area, it will travel towards it at 47 inches an hour, then drill down to take a biopsy of the land.

The samples will then be stored into a self-contained laboratory on the rover, where it'll be crushed and examined.

It's scheduled to land on the mysterious planet in March 2021, then - once settled on the rough terrain - will hunt for life.

The camera system, called Pan-Cam, was designed by engineers at University College London.

It perches atop the rover’s high mast and is fitted with sensors that scan the planet's surface in search of minerals or water.

Once it identifies an area, it will travel towards it at 47 inches an hour, then drill down to take a biopsy of the land.

The samples will then be stored into a self-contained laboratory on the rover, where it'll be crushed and examined.

According to experts at NASA, proof of extra-terrestrial life could be confirmed in weeks of the rover reaching Mars.

Sue Horne, Head of Space Exploration at the UK Space Agency, told The Telegraph: 'Mars is really inhospitable and all the rovers so far have been scraping around on the surface and they haven’t found anything yet.

'Analysis of radiation damage and that is shown that you have to get one metre below the surface to get to regions that haven’t been affected.'

Test: A working prototype of the newly named Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover at the Airbus Defence and Space facility in Stevenage

She added: 'One of the unique features of the ExoMars rover is the capability to drill down further than any other rover so far.

'Pan Cam is critical for the science. The minerals show us where life might have once been. The filters have been optimised to look for specific water rich minerals, and clay based minerals like jarosite, and also the stratification and sediments which could have been laid down by a river.

'We will retrieve pellets of the samples which will be crushed and analysed, and there are instruments there that will determine the chemicals associated with life and past life.'

The robot will carry the name of the iconic scientist and co-discoverer of DNA's double helix structure - Rosalind Franklin.

The work by Dr Franklin at Kings College London using X-ray crystallography enabled a major breakthrough in understanding the structure and function of DNA.

She died without recognition for her ground-breaking work but has since become one of the most iconic scientists of all-time.

Her name is now attached to an Oxford research institute and the UK-built ExoMars robot that will launch in 2020.

Built and designed in the UK, more than 100 scientists across the country have worked on the project, investigating a number of essential aspects such as selecting the best landing location on Mars

The name of the rover was revealed by astronaut Tim Peake (pictured) and science minister Chris Skidmore at an event in Stevenage as part of a public competition launched in July last year

WHAT EVIDENCE DO SCIENTISTS HAVE FOR LIFE ON MARS?

The search for life on other planets has captivated mankind for decades.

But the reality could be a little less like the Hollywood blockbusters, scientists have revealed.

They say if there was life on the red planet, it probably will present itself as fossilized bacteria - and have proposed a new way to look for it.

Here are the most promising signs of life so far -

Water

When looking for life on Mars, experts agree that water is key.

Although the planet is now rocky and barren with water locked up in polar ice caps there could have been water in the past.

In 2000, scientists first spotted evidence for the existence of water on Mars.

The Nasa Mars Global Surveyor found gullies that could have been created by flowing water.

The debate is ongoing as to whether these recurring slope lineae (RSL) could have been formed from water flow.

Meteorites

Earth has been hit by 34 meteorites from Mars, three of which are believed to have the potential to carry evidence of past life on the planet, writes Space.com.

In 1996, experts found a meteorite in Antarctica known as ALH 84001 that contained fossilised bacteria-like formations.

However, in 2012, experts concluded that this organic material had been formed by volcanic activity without the involvement of life.

Signs of Life

The first close-ups of the planet were taken by the 1964 Mariner 4 mission.

These initial images showed that Mars has landforms that could have been formed when the climate was much wetter and therefore home to life.

In 1975, the first Viking orbiter was launched and although inconclusive it paved the way for other landers.

Many rovers, orbiters and landers have now revealed evidence of water beneath the crust and even occasional precipitation.

Earlier this year, Nasa's Curiosity rover found potential building blocks of life in an ancient Martian lakebed.

The organic molecules preserved in 3.5 billion-year-old bedrock in Gale Crater — believed to have once contained a shallow lake the size of Florida's Lake Okeechobee — suggest conditions back then may have been conducive to life.

Future missions to Mars plan on bringing samples back to Earth to test them more thoroughly.

Methane

In 2018, Curiosity also confirmed sharp seasonal increases of methane in the Martian atmosphere.

Experts said the methane observations provide 'one of the most compelling' cases for present-day life.

Curiosity's methane measurements occurred over four-and-a-half Earth years, covering parts of three Martian years.

Seasonal peaks were detected in late summer in the northern hemisphere and late winter in the southern hemisphere.

The magnitude of these seasonal peaks – by a factor of three – was far more than scientists expected.